Healing
by michallev
Summary: An Alex centered short tag to the season's finale. Because I couldn't just leave it like that...


"Please…. Please… please…." Alex repeated over and over again. Hot tears soaking her shirt. "Please…. Please…" He kept asking her, begging her. Izzie had no idea what he wanted from her- to kiss him back? To sleep with him? To touch him? she was terrified to even move, knowing that he needed to let it out, that it was uncontrollable and that she shouldn't interfere with that…. whatever "that" means.

So she just held him as he continued to cry on her shoulder, literally; whispering in his ear "Sshhh… it's okay…. It's okay…." As if those words can take all of his pain away. Seeing him like that, so twisted and broken and sad really surprised her more than anything. Not that she thought he was heartless like most of the people at the hospital, but she realized that she really doesn't know him at all. After all this time that they worked together, and slept together and lived together, after everything that they have been through, right now at this moment, the guy that was holding her for dear life was a complete stranger, and yet she had never felt more close to him than she did just then. Well maybe she felt close to him when he lifted her off of Danny's bed and held her as she was crying, but she was so out of it back then that she doesn't really remember.

She felt his hot tears as they rolled down his cheeks and soaked her shirt, getting cold. After awhile he stopped talking but she didn't let go; neither did he. He just clung to her, leaning on his left arm, his right arm wrapped around her waist. After some time the crying also stopped. At that point Izzie realized that he was shaking; she could feel the tremors all over his body and she rubbed her hand on his shoulder blades and back in big soothing circles.

He felt exhausted, drained, like he hadn't slept in years. Suddenly feeling a little light headed he leaned down, lifting his legs on the bed, he was lying on his left side, looking straight out the window, in sad hollow eyes.

Izzie laid there next to him, resting her head on his pillow so that he was forced to look at her, but then he rolled away, turning to lie on his right side, his back to her. It felt so much like with Rebecca, when she first came to see him after she had left the hospital. The two of them lying in the bed in the on call room; their naked bodies only slightly touching under the blanket. Lying like that across from Izzie, so close to her, felt so much like it did back then, when he slept with Rebecca not because he was angry at her for playing with him and getting him suspended, but because he had missed her, and he was happy, really happy, to see her there in the exam room, to know that she came for him.

It felt so familiar and so strange all at the same time that he had to turn away, to not face Izzie. It was always so much easier to just push her away, with his angry, hateful words. But she did not pull away, did not let herself to be pushed away from him, by him. She moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around him and rested her head in the crook of his neck. She felt him shaking against her.

"I was sixteen…" He started talking, his voice is surprisingly steady, as opposed to before when he was talking and his voice shook with every breath the took.

"You don't have to do this." Izzie whispered to him, but Alex ignored her, he couldn't control it, he didn't even want to talk, the words just came out of his mouth almost subconsciously.

"When my dad left…. Actually I was sixteen, when I made him leave…." His voice cracked a little but still remained steady.

"My mom… she… ah…. Him leaving… it was hard for her…" He felt the tears threatening flow again, so he blinked rapidly, holding them at bay, even though Izzie couldn't actually see his face. "It was my fault… that he took off…. I… ah… I beat him up…. Real bad… even when my mom had begged me to stop…." He stopped for a second and inhaled deeply. "And then he was gone."

"There was no light… no sun light… for weeks. She didn't open any windows. There were whole days… weeks… that she didn't get out of bed…. I fed her… and I changed her… and I bathed her…" He could feel Izzie's body tense as he used the same words he used to convince her to let him take Rebecca home, to let him take care of her. "There was no body else… just me… I took care of her." He felt one single tear roll out his eye, onto the bridge of his nose and soaking the bed. He took several deep breaths and continued.

"I used to give her some sleeping pills before I went to school…. Something that the doctor prescribed… because I wasn't there to watch her. I did all the cleaning and the grocery shopping and paying the bills and the cooking. We were doing okay. I took care of her." His voice was starting to shake.

"It's okay, Alex, you don't have to say anymore." Izzie also repeated what she had told him earlier.

"And then one day just about a week after my seventeenth birthday… I got up and there was sun light…. The windows were all wide open and there was fresh air. And my mom… she… ah… she was making me breakfast. Pancakes and eggs and freshly baked bread and fresh orange juice…. And she was singing to herself in the kitchen. And when I came inside she looked so…. So happy…." His voice cracked again. He quickly wiped the tears with the back of his hands and sniffled a little.

"But I had to go to school…. And she looked…. She was so… happy…. She looked so happy…." He was starting to hyperventilate and had to take several deep breaths to get his breathing under control. He could feel Izzie's hold of him tighten, strengthening him.

"I didn't give her the pills…." He paused for a few seconds. Closing his eyes he could almost feel himself back then watching his mom before leaving for school. "I left and she… she stopped me at the door… gave me a piece of my favorite- banana cream pie- wrapped in a tin foil, for the road, she said…" Izzie could feel him shaking violently against her again, but she did not stop him.

"When I cam back… I saw that…. that the windows… the windows were shut….. and… and… I knew…. that something… something was wrong. I found her in the bathroom…. She shot… shot…" his breath hitched, coming in short ragged breaths and he had to fight hard to finish his sentence. "Shot…" He tried again but couldn't get the words out. "I don't even know where she got the gun…. I was always watching her…. I took… care of… her…I have done this before" His voice was low, barely a whisper, and he couldn't go any further.

He didn't tell her, how he spent hours after the cops came and gone, rubbing the blood off the walls. He didn't tell her how he couldn't bring himself to eat the food she had cooked for him for lunch. How he left it in the fridge until it was rotten and he had to throw it away. He didn't tell her how he had tried it once, to slice his own wrist, his right wrist; just to see how it feels, but panicked at the last minute, and now he wears a watch with a wide strip to hide the scar.

He was crying again, more violently this time. Sobbing uncontrollably. The tears rolling freely, soaking the sheet, his whole body shaking, repeating over and over again in a low breathy voice "I have done this before…. I have done this before….. I have done this before…."

Izzie held him tight, her left hand closing on his against his chest, closing her eyes. She didn't know what to do. What to say to him. How to comfort him. So she didn't say anything. She held him close, feeling his fast heart beat, his shallow fast breathing. She held him in silence until his heart rate slowed a little, until his breathing evened out. Only after she was sure he was asleep she allowed herself to relax a little, to assure to herself that Alex will be okay, that she will help him through this, like he had helped her with Danny. Only then she allowed herself to fall asleep at his side.

--

Alex woke up some time later with a headache, feeling someone wrapped around him. He could feel her hot breath and her heart beat against his body. At first he thought that it was Rebecca. It felt so much like the night after she had told him that she was pregnant, after he had finally come to his senses. They fell asleep in each other's arms and Alex felt secure back then, felt safe for the first time in a very long time.

And then he remembered that she couldn't be lying next to him, that she had been admitted last night, that she had a breakdown, that she is being sent to a psychiatric facility tomorrow, or is it today already? He seemed to have lost track of time. He remembered then falling asleep crying, something he hadn't done since he was seven years old. He remembered that it was Izzie who was lying next to him, whose body heat he was feeling. The realization that it was not Rebecca, of the events of the previous day, physically hurt him, and he couldn't help but feeling slightly disappointed- her obvious rejection of last night slightly stung- she still doesn't want him. No body does, he thought sadly, before he could stop himself. He had to take several deep breaths just to gather up the strength to get up. He had to clean the mess he had left in the kitchen yesterday when he had rushed Rebecca to the hospital before Meredith would get back.

He got up slowly, careful not to wake Izzie up. He sat up rubbing his temples for a second, watching Izzie turn on her stomach, not waking up, before getting up completely. The room slightly spinning, he tried to remember when was the last time he had anything to eat or drink.

He went down stairs bare footed trying to wish the headache and the slight nausea away. He decided to clean the kitchen first before moving to clean the sofa- to get over with the worst part first. That had always been his way of dealing with things- once the worst part is over the rest is nothing but a piece of cake.

He stopped just before entering the kitchen, trying to prepare himself for what he is about to see, trying to remember how the kitchen looked when he left it. Nothing prepared him for what he saw when he got inside. The kitchen was spotless. Not a single trace of what had happened there only a few hours before. As if it never happened. As if she never happened, he thought sadly. Maybe Izzie cleaned it so he wouldn't have to deal with it, it sounds like her, he speculated.

He grabbed a few cleaning products and moved to clean the sofa in the living room. He sprayed the stain with cleaning foam and waited for it to take affect just as the instructions read. He could still smell it- the strong stench of urine. He would probably have to get Meredith a new sofa, or at least to upholster it. Would probably cost 500 or so.

Funny- only a few days ago he was saving up for a security deposit, for a new place for him, Rebecca and the baby…. Was thinking of baby names. He was sure that it would be a girl, as pretty as her mother. Only a few days ago it all made sense- he was about to start a family, to turn over a new leaf, he was about to become a father…

And now… now he was cleaning he girlfriend's urine off of his roommate's sofa.

The smell suddenly hit him, combined with the smell of the cleaning foam making bile rise at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and noticing that three minutes had passed, he started rubbing the foam off.

He rubbed the stain off violently, almost ripping the fabric, he felt tears running down his face again, but he did not bother to wipe them away, he just needed to get the stain off, to make this all go away. He kept rubbing it, faster and faster, putting more and more strength into his every motion. His whole body shaking with exertion.

--

Meredith got back home late last night of early next morning, depending on how you look at it. She felt high, euphoric almost. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this happy. Maybe the minute before Addison Shepard had entered her life, or maybe before that- the first time she held a scalpel. She only had a couple of hours of sleep before she had to go back to the hospital, but she didn't feel tired, couldn't sleep with all the adrenaline running through her body anyways.

She quickly unlocked the door and entered the house, dropping her keys and her bag on the table. Remembering the sight of the kitchen from last night she suddenly sobered up. "Izzie?" She called out, she had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling, something was definitely off. "Izz?" She tried again, when she heard a noise coming from the living room.

"Alex?" She asked as she recognized his prone form kneeling by the sofa, cleaning it by the look of it. He did not answer. "Alex? What's wrong?" She tried again, but got no response, he seemed to be moving in some sort of trance. "Stop it, Alex." She said a little harsher, but he just continued. "Alex, stop!" She raised her voice, but she laid a soft hand on his right shoulder. He finally stopped under her touch, though he stayed in the same position. She could feel him shaking, heat radiating through him.

She sat on the sofa looking at him. He had been crying clearly, and he was still shaking, though she was no longer touching him. "Alex, what happened here yesterday?" She asked softly, though she had a vague idea. He stretched up a little and sat back, leaning against the coffee table, looking at Meredith for the first time. His eyes were glassy, slightly unfocused and fever bright. The tremors that wrecked his body were clearly visible.

"She…. Ah… she cut herself." He answered quietly looking down. He knew that that's enough information for Meredith to understand, to put two and two together. She always got him in that way. He never had to spell out anything to her. It always surprised him how much alike they were. He could swear sometimes that she was the female version of him.

She leaned closer and placed a cool hand against his forehead. "You're burning up." She declared. "Come on, let's get you upstairs. I'll finish up here." She said as she got up and reached a hand to help him up. Unlike himself he accepted her offer.

"Where's Izzie?" She inquired.

"Stil sleeping in my room." He answered watching her raise an eyebrow.

"It wasn't like that…." He muttered.

"Hey…. Hey" She stopped him as they reached the top. "… are you okay?" She asked as the got upstairs before entering his room and Alex could hear that she was genuinely concerned.

"I'm not really sure…" He admitted. He appreciated it that she didn't tell him then that he will be okay, that everything happens for a reason, or any other cliché, she just stroke his cheek softly and waited for him to get into bed by Izzie. She then threw a thin blanket over them and left, turning the light off as she exited the room.


End file.
